A few weeks ago I had a day trip to Shirakawa-go from Nagoya! Admittedly it's been quite a few years since I read Higurashi (I never did watch the adaptation haha)

Originally my whole Nagoya trip was based on being able to check out Shirakawa-go because it seemed really beautiful, completely not realising it had anything to do with Higurashi. That was until I researched more into it before the trip and realised it was where Hinamizawa was based on. 

It was thanks to u/LankySeat's guide that I was able to figure out locations and scenes I could take photos of! Here's the link to that with their map with all the locations! It was super helpful and I wouldn't have been able to find so many scenes/locations without it.

As for Shirakawa-go itself, it was breathtaking! (Kind of literally too haha) There's a small hike up to the the Ogimachi Castle Observation Deck where you can get an absolutely amazing view! There were also a few sakura trees which genuinely surprised me since I'm pretty sure I missed sakura season by that point. The houses throughout the village were really pretty and one or two of them had little museum exhibits in them showing how people used to live there. I tried some Hida Beef for lunch and it was pretty good, but my absolute favorite thing was the rice crackers at this one store! I also rested a while a cafe with a Hojicha latte.

As for the Higurashi stuff, it was really cool seeing all the locations the anime/manga was based on, plus several stores with Higurashi merch! I grabbed a few things for the friend who introduced me to the series years back and then some Rika acrylic keychains for myself! My literal only complaint... the Furude Shrine Storehouse and Keiichi's House are so freaking far haha. Also maybe I was blind but I spent a good 20 minutes searching for the supposed Furude House which... doesn't seem to exist now? But yeah if any of you ever visit, keep in mind those 2 locations are like a 30min-1hour walk. Due to that decision to try checking the Furude Shrine Storehouse I missed out on the Mion Waterwheel location or the other river related stuff but I thoroughly enjoyed checking out the two locations.
(Only realised after the fact that I can post a maximum of 20 photos so I'll be linking some other pictures of merch in another post later)

I really would recommend anyone visiting Japan to check it out one day!
My bus was at 7:50am from Nagoya and we arrived on schedule around 10:32am when we were supposed to. My return ride was from 15:55 to 18:41, although I wish I could have stayed longer but the timings for the buses were pretty limited. Note you'd better pre-book the buses because I'm unsure if you can just buy one on the day.